Africa-EU: economic indicators, trade and investment - Issue number 59/2010 - Products Statistics in Focus

Trade in goods affected by global crisis: EU-27 imports down 33%

This is the second publication prepared jointly by Eurostat and the African Union (AU) Commission's Statistics Unit in the framework of the promotion of economic governance as foreseen by the Joint Africa-EU Strategy. In recent years, GDP in African countries has progressed at a faster pace than in the European Union, but it has been offset by a comparatively high increase in consumer prices. Furthermore, the global economic crisis had a considerable impact on GDP and trade in goods in 2009. Since 2004, the value of extra-EU trade in goods with Africa has risen substantially, with imports (mainly energy products) consistently higher than exports (especially machinery and transport equipment). The EU-27's small trade surplus observed in the trade of services in 2007 increased to EUR 3.7 billion in 2008.